Pig

Like most humans, I like pork. However, some of my religious friends assure me that pork is unclean. While I assure them that I cook it properly, they are unswayed by this mere physical cleansing. This, in a way, makes sense: no amount of fire can sear away a metaphysical filth. If, of course, there is such a thing.

While I am still unwilling to accept the idea of pork being metaphysically unclean, I do accept that pigs (like humans and birds) are flu factories. While everyone has heard of swine flu, most folks are probably not aware that pigs can serve as oinking germ laboratories. To grossly over simplify things, flu virus strains can jump species from humans to pigs and also from birds to pigs. Like many viruses, the flu virus can swap bits and pieces, thus creating strains that blend features of multiple strains. While not all these strains are particularly virulent (witness the recent pandemic “pandudic”) this sort of recombination is worrisome because it can produce nasty results.

Obviously, virus swapping between species is nothing new. However, there are some relative new things. First, we have massive agribusiness that raise pigs (and birds) in large numbers and in highly concentrated areas. This means that we have created massive breeding grounds for diseases. Second, we have a worldwide rapid transportation system which allows new strains to be spread far and wide rapidly. So, for example, a new strain that appears on a pig farm in China can be spread to New York city via the next jet out.

Given that these factory farms are prime disease farms, one would think that governments would closely monitor them and be on the lookout for the next pandemic. Some countries, such as China, do this. In the United States, however, there is considerable reluctance to allow the state to monitor the herds for diseases that could be a threat to humans.

One reason is the view that the government should not “meddle” in the affairs of private industry (other than to send subsidy checks, of course). This can, of course, be countered on health grounds: if monitoring pigs can help deal with a dangerous new pandemic, then it would seem to be within the legitimate powers of the state to do so. After all, if the state can do a full body scan of airline passengers, surely the state should be allowed to check out pigs for threats to human life. The flu is, of course, far more dangerous than terrorists (just compare flu deaths and deaths attributed to terror).

Another reason, which has more substance, is that such testing can be a financial hazard to pig farmers. While eating bacon will not give you the flu, pork sales drop when the news is full of tales of swine flu. Not surprisingly, if the public learned that pig herds were being tested for pandemic flu viruses, this would also have an impact on sales. And, of course, herds that tested positive might not find any buyers, even after they recovered and were perfectly safe to eat (well, for unclean beasts). This problem would need to be addressed. One approach would be public education on the matter. Of course, since ignorance and emotion tend to dominate over reason, this approach might not work that well. A second approach would be to assure confidentiality of test results and to have the state compensate farmers in case a herd had to be destroyed (or could not be sold because of unfounded concerns).

Political pork is spending that is intended to benefit those who support a politician. For example, a senator might lard up a bill on veteran’s benefits with funds for building an unnecessary airport in his district. When Obama got elected, he promised to deal with this sort of pork, but so far his attempts have not been entirely sucessful.

One reason why pork survives is that the folks who are the best at getting pork tend to have considerable political clout. This, of course, is a two way swine trail: the more clout you have, the more snout you can get. The more snout you pull in, the more political resources and clout you get. So, the pork masters are the folks who are the most difficult to deal with if one is trying to trim out the pork.

A second reason pork survives is that it is considered by many a legitimate part of politics-these many being folks who have a place at the table where the pork is served. As such, while people will squeal out against pork, the will to do something about it tends to be lacking.

A third reason is that pork is hanging in there is that pork is often a matter of perception. When a person is elected to Congress, their job is to represent their constituents and look out for them. From the standpoint of a politician’s consituents their senators might just be bringing home the bacon. From the standpoint of others, they are packing in the pork.

This factor also partially explain why congress as a whole can have such a dismal approval rating while the same folks tend to be elected over and over. In total, all that pork is generally bad for the country and people are outraged about bridges to nowhere and airports for nobody. Outraged, that is, when the bridge and airport do not benefit them. When they are at the table feasting on pork, it is a wonderful thing and they tend to send their man (or woman) back to DC to bring home more of that tasty money.

While people do love their own pork, it can be seen as a bad thing. To use an analogy, imagine if your body worked on this pork system: rather than nutrients going where they were needed most, they went to whichever body part had the most influence. So, if your ass had the clout, then you would have massive junk in the trunk while the rest of your body was atrophied from lack of resources. That would obviously be rather unhealthy-likewise for the pork system in politics.

So, what can be done? The easy and obvious answer is that spending should be assessed in terms of how much it impacts the general good of the country rather than how much it fattens up a particular part of the country.

Naturally, people can have honest and conscientious disputes over what is for the general good and what is not. However, there is clearly a lot of fat that could be trimmed away.